Last Long Run before the Marathon

I have officially begun to taper for the marathon, so today was the last endurance run for a while. I did 160 minutes for a 19-miler. This is not my best effort, but fine, it is good enough.

It was warmer than usual, so it was a good day to make a hydration plan: It turns out that you can over as well as under hydrate. So what you do is weigh yourself before and after a run to get a fix on your water usage. I lost 4 lbs over the course of 160 minutes, which means I should consume 8 oz of fluid every 20 minutes. This is not practical while running a marathon, but at least I don't have to worry about over-hydration.

This week I also got my marathon # and there is some way of using that to have progress texts sent to your phone. I am 9899--yeah! I just made it under the 5-digits. It turns out that your # directly corresponds to your qualifying position. Seems a bit Darwinian to me, but that is how they run it. It is a little daunting; my last marathon only had around 2,000 entrants, this one has about 10,000 people who are all faster than me! Yikes!

Update: I reviewed the numbers and there are 34 times as many entrants to the Boston Marathon who are faster than I am--as compared to the 288 people who beat me in the Bay State Marathon. There are more than 8-fold more fast runners than the total finishers from the Bay State! It is going to be a zoo.

Playing a teacher--A swan song and a debut

Ray Walston was in a ton of motion pictures and television before he played the teacher, Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). But that role was the first and only memorable one for me until fairly recently, when I saw him on a classic channel in Kiss Me, Stupid with Dean Martin and Kim Novak (1964). He was insane and insanely funny in his role as Orville Jeremiah Spooner--piano teacher, aspiring songwriter and jealous husband of an improbably beautiful wife. He was in lots of stuff after playing Mr. Hand, but it was this role that stuck in my mind and I suspect, in the minds of people from my generation. Meanwhile, around the same time (1986) a man mostly known as an economist and author would play a small role as a teacher and it would launch his career in acting.

Update: According to the Oracle...

Ray Walston was in House Arrest (1996) with Ben Stein (I)

Where is your fiscal restraint now Moses?

The Foundry

A Marathon of Chores

While I was wasting the day on a long run and the just as long recovery period, my wife did and enormous amount of cooking...

First she went shopping, then she made:

• A huge batch of meatballs
• A pork roast plus roasted root vegetables
• Taco meat for another meal
• Some kind of raspberry bar dessert thing
• A few other things I can't remember now

Reminds me of those old Geritol commercials. I think I'll keep her!

Sunday Marathon Training

I just never hit my stride today. I pushed a little bit on the first nine miles and hit that mark 3 minutes late. I figured this was okay since last time I ran it in the opposite direction and lost 5 minutes in that stretch. Of course that was the last 9 miles of 19 rather than the first, so it probably wasn't okay after-all.

Today was supposed to be warm and it was pretty nice while the sun was out, but when the clouds came it became downright chilly. This is what happened when I made my turn at the 9 mile point. I didn't have the energy, or perhaps the will, to pick-up the pace to a level where I would be warm. So the rest of the run was more of an 'endure the unpleasantness of it' than 'push hard and make a good training of it' kind of thing.

At around the 18.5 mile point I even stopped and walked the rest. My time at that point was about 2:42, while the last couple of times I did it in 2:37 for the whole thing.

I will probably do the thing one more time before the Boston marathon and then begin to taper-off after that. It would be nice if the final run had a decent time as this would be a bit of a confidence-booster for me.

The 9-mile point is where I make a Right turn from Lowell Road onto Barretts Mill Road down at the South end of the map.

Debtstar...

Source

Burning again...

Back in February I did the first burning of the season and I burned a lot: I kept a bonfire roaring for hours. Yet today I did the same thing from 11:00AM till 3:00PM and still there are plenty of branches, brush and twigs left. I even had the advantage of a couple of cubic yards of brush already piled-up by the girls last week.

I should be able to get in a final burn by the April 30th deadline and hopefully that burn will consume all that is left from the ice storm.

Training Log

Course........................................Time.....Distance.....Pace......Date

Bedford Neighborhood.....................31.59............4.15......7:42........4/02/09

Elm, Great Brook Farm and Rt 4.......80:24.........10.32......7:47.....4/01/09

5 Towns...................................160...............19............8:25....3/28/09

Bedford Neighborhood.....................33.30............4.15..................3/27/09

Bedford Neighborhood.....................31:30............4.15.........7:35.....3/26/09

Elm, Great Brook Farm and Rt 4...........79:31...........10.32.......7:42........3/25/09

Bedford Neighborhood......................33:29...........4.15...................3/23/09

5 Towns.............................................Sigh............18.5........................3/22/09

Elm, Great Brook Farm and Rt 4.......81:00.........10.32......7:50:56.....3/19/09

Bedford Neighborhood.........................31:26..........4.15........7:34:27.....3/20/09

A Driver Who Was No Geometer

I came to an empty intersection today which was at the end of a single lane, but widened into two lanes for turning. I was in the right-hand one and soon after I got there another car came into the left-hand one. He drove well past me to the point that I could not see if traffic was approaching from the left.

So I pulled a little further forward.

He responded by moving forward again, such that he blocked my view again. He was too late though: I had seen a break in traffic and was able to make my turn and be on my way.

Here is why I think the other driver was an ass:

• Fairness: I got there first. I should have to wait till he goes before I get a chance? I would have to wait if I didn't move forward.
• Geometry: I needed to see cars coming from the closer lane--almost exactly 90 degrees angle from me. He needed to look at both lanes: The left was unobstructed for him, but the right was 10 feet further away and therefore his angle was obtuse.

My irritation was acute.

Mid-week run

After plastering, I went for my middle distance run. My goal is to go at marathon race pace, but I am happy if I just keep it under 8 min/mile. This week I was just under 81 minutes while last week I was just over 79. The pace this time was around 7:50/mile,-not as good as last time, but fine, good enough.

Fuel test data

I finally had to visit a gas station yesterday for a fill-up. I had wondered how long I could go in this post.

I went from the 9th of February to the 18th of March between fill-ups.

I didn't get a good look at the odometer, but it was somewhere around 370 miles and I put 13.5 gallons in.

5 weeks of commuting should be 300 miles, so I must have run some errands over the last month, but not too many.

A Modest Proposal to Prevent the Pernicious Warming of our Fair Globe

Thus, through this wise measure, we can reduce the depth of their carbon footprints by lightening the weight by which their purses cause them to press down upon their feet.

Read it all here.

2nd-Hand War Stories

I was in the Marine Corps Reserve for 11 years, but never got to be in a war zone. The closest I ever got was in the first gulf war; my unit got deployed, but not to the gulf--to Japan.

So I have no direct war stories, but I have heard plenty: My Dad was a career Air Force pilot and he went to Vietnam a number of times and came home with stories. Also, I joined the Marines in 1981, so a lot of the men I worked with had been in Vietnam too.

One guy had been in the infantry in Vietnam, but when I met him he was going through electronics school and joining the Air Wing. He was the kind of guy you didn't know whether to fear or not: He had a round and innocent-looking face, but had biceps the size of my thighs. Also, he was a Sergeant, and supposedly this was the third time he had earned this rank, having punched-out superiors and been busted back to private twice. He had some great stories though.

When on patrols he and his fellow Marines would sometimes shoot game to eat. Well, they had shot a monkey, skinned it and had it on a spit over a fire and one of the guys observed that it looked like a baby. So, our friend took a Polaroid picture of it (the old fashioned kind where you peel the paper off after a minute--or whatever). Then, when he got back to the base he wrote on the back of the picture, "See Mom! Marines really do eat babies". Put it in an envelope and mailed it to his Mom.

After we all had a good laugh, one of the guys inevitably asked, "What does monkey taste like"? "Just like baby, but a little more stringy."

Actually, I made-up that last part. But that is only fair, the older Marine probably made up his whole story too.

Early St. Patrick's Day at Ches Pecchia

I will be at a trade show in NYC on Tue, so it is now or post-Tuesday for this traditional dinner.

The corned beef simmered all day and then was baked for a couple of hours in a 325F oven while each of the other ingredients in turn boiled in the beef water and then joined the rest in the oven.

A beauty day for a run

Sunny, little wind and temps in the mid-50's.

I somehow got it into my mind that last time I did this run in 2:35, but in looking at the older post, I see that it was 2:37--the same as today. I didn't make a note of the seconds last time, but this time it was 49 seconds past the 37 minute mark. All in all, the pace was under 8:19/mile for the 19 mile run.

More IMing...

Wife says: I wanted to ask you if there was anything you wanted me to get while I'm going to the store today

Mister 3:24 for now says: Human cryo bags...

Mister 3:24 for now says: Isn't that what winter camping sleeping bags are like?

Wife says: not just for storing humans! also great for storing suits!

Wife says: I guess people were upset and offended by that post. It was removed from the freecycle site

Mister 3:24 for now says: That is too bad--what a bunch of primadonna's.

Wife says: yeah really

Mister 3:24 for now says: They are probably really expensive and if you need one you could really save a lot of dough.

Wife says: so nothing else you want at grocery?

IMing

Wife says: Meenah smells like smoke.

Mister 3:24 for now says: Maybe she has picked-up a nasty habit.

Mister 3:24 for now says: Could help her loose weight though.

Wife says: I think Bridgy has taught her to smoke.

Mister 3:24 for now says: Bad dog!

Surenna is 12 today.

Who will rid me of this weird metal thing which bends my neck?

A small birthday cake for the actual birth day--the party will have a full-sized one.

Making a wish...

All the candles in one blow! Will her wish come true?

Dilettantism

While running I often daydream. I know what most people would think: Of course you do, what else is there to occupy your mind? Actually, I wool-gather less than one might think. I am pretty serious and focused while training, so a lot of my mental energy is taken-up pushing myself to go faster. But I do daydream as well.

Today I was thinking about "dilettante". It is a word I really like, but often can't think of when I need it. While it is a word I like, it is not a phenomenon I like.

I once worked for a guy who was an uber-dilettante in many subjects and what a pain in the ass it was! He would get an idee fixe from some popular source like a best-seller or a magazine article and then it was off-to-the-races! It would take two weeks of lunchtime encounters, ten minute talks at random and so forth to compress a semester or two of theory and practice into usable form. Then and only then would he suddenly realize that it wasn't so cut-and-dry as he had been led to believe.

Ugh! And that was a boss, so it was kind of my job to educate and advise in situations like that. What is worse is when it is say, the husband of one of your wife's friends.

Wednesday Run

I almost didn't go today due to the gray and drizzly outlook.

79:08--7:40/Mile. This is the kind of speed I need to be at.